Arriving on the heels of the capital punishment debate that surrounded last week`s execution of killer Robert Alton Harris in California, ”The Shadow of a Killer” (8 p.m. Monday, NBC-Ch. 5) might appear as thoughtfully topical as a ”Nightline” edition or as exploitative as a quickie paperback. It is neither. Though it does center on the struggle of one New York City police officer in the late 1960s to come to terms with his feelings about the death penalty, it is also a fairly routine cops-and-hoods tale. The combination is an uneasy one.
Scott Bakula, sporting a mustache and shaggy hairdo that make him appear more `60s radical than cop, plays Detective David Mitchell, a highly decorated member of the force.
Street savvy and one sane step this side of reckless, Mitchell has a closet full of awards and citations for valor.
It is after one awards presentation that he is asked, by the department`s smarmy public-relations minion (J.T. Walsh), to lend his voice and face to a public-service TV announcement in support of the death penalty for cop killers.
But Mitchell refuses to participate, thereby setting off a chain reaction of resentment that begins with, ”What are ya, some kind of radical?” remarks and escalates into his being ostracized by fellow officers.
The reasons for Mitchell`s opposition to the death penalty are never sufficiently explored. He is not, shall we say, as articulate as Camus in his famous ”Reflections on the Guillotine,” that most persuasively passionate anti-capital-punishment essay.
Mitchell`s only argument is a simplistic killing-is-bad, and he`s a little soft on that. We see the manifestations of his inner conflict, but only in such trite examples as his chats with family members, a priest, another highly decorated officer and in his brooding.
He also has nightmares in which he is strapping a man to an electric chair.
Meanwhile, he is being drawn into the center of the death-penalty storm, eventually having to testify at the murder trial of a Mafia hoodlum who killed a cop.
The acting (you will see any number of Chicago faces in the cast) is good, given the material. And there are elements of a good cop movie here. But in trying to balance action with issues, the film distills the drama and trivializes the capital punishment debate.
– I don`t care how many magazines have proclaimed Harry Hamlin the sexiest man on Earth. I say he looks like an ape.
That`s why I could never accept him as a sleak ”L.A. Law” lawyer and why I think he`s terrific in a drama called ”Deliver Them From Evil: The Taking of Alta View” (8 p.m. Tuesday, CBS-Ch. 2).
Wearing a baseball cap with the words ”It`s a Boy” on it, he bursts into the maternity ward at the Alta View Hospital in Salt Lake City. He`s toting guns and explosives and he has vengeance on his mind.
He seeks to kill the doctor who he believes performed an unethical tubal ligation on his wife. Not finding him, he takes who he can find-nurses, a pregnant woman, a husband and a couple of newborns-and begins a standoff with the masses of police who arrive on the scene.
”Are any of us gonna get out of here alive?” asks one nurse, played by Teri Garr.
”How`s that tuna fish commercial go?” Hamlin says. ”. . . `Sorry Charlie.` ”
Hamlin gives his character a chilling instability. His eyes are dead, like rocks of coal. Though the film gets a bit flabby in its tension (the police are a bunch of numbskulls), Hamlin gives it any number of jolts.
– ”Who Cares About the Children?” This ”Frontline” presentation airing at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on PBS-Ch. 11 represents another pothole in the presidential campaign of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.
As he started to explore the state and the crisis of the foster-care scene in America, producer Hector Galan was advised to examine the child-welfare system in Arkansas. That was where, Galan was told, the crisis was worst and the issue hottest.
The yearlong investigation is a stunner, and the show gives us examples of failures to investigate abuse, poorly trained caseworkers and unlicensed foster homes.
Clinton comes off in a very bad light in this probing, painful piece.
